Water

What we have learnt about using and storing water on our
boat.

Part 1 storing water
on our boat

On our first boat,
Lupari, we had water in 2 x20 litre jerry jugs for use in the galley. These were
easily taken out and refilled. In the head we had a 50 litre water bladder and
used hand pumps on the sinks. Because we were not sure of the quality of the
inside of this bladder we were not prepared to drink it. We were never
confident, no matter how hard we cleaned it that it was good enough for
drinking water. It was perfect for the head, for bathing, for dishwashing water
and teeth cleaning etc.But we were
never able to go too far away from water. While we were l cruising up around
the coast it was not a problem. We kept another jerry jug for collecting water
from other sources, waterfalls, rain etc for laundry and as back up to our head
water. We installed a salt water pump in the galley for washing up, washing hands,
rinsing vegetables etc. Salt water in the galley was a great idea and helped us
conserve our drinking water. This helped save our drinking water but killed the
engine... but that is another story and one I am not qualified to tell

On our current boat, Lupari2, when we first took possession of
her, she had approx 300l galvanized water tank, 20+ years old, plumbed to the
galley and the head. It kept us in water on our coastal cruises and weekends
away. We had enough to use for washing and we were always able to top up with
clean fresh water when we returned to the marina or boat club. We also caught
rainwater from our bimini. After a few months
we began to notice red sludge in the drinking water if we had been out on a
rough day, so we installed a particle filter in the drinking line to filter out
all the dirt, thinking that it was just accumulation over several years. Before
long it was getting through this filter as well. After crossing Bass Strait, we
decided to investigate the problem and try and fix it once and for all.

The first task was to try and get to the tank which was not
an easy job .( note to self...make access
to inspect tanks easy)When we cut
through the tank we noticed large black muddy bubbles on the inside of the tank
and rustymud oozing from them. Here was
our problem. After 20+ years in water, galvanizing does not last. The steel
tank had rusted and was in danger of rusting through so we cut it out. It was winter in Melbourne and we were keen to
get to warmer places. The cheapest, most efficient and time effective thing we
could do at the time was get 2 x 80 litre caravan tanks from a caravan shop and
install these in its place in the engine bay. This cut our water capacity by
half or more. But we did have room for a few 20 litre drums as well.The water coming from this new tank tasted
awful. The plastic taste permeated everything, so as well as the sediment
filter, which we kept in the plumbing system, we added a dedicated drinking
water tap which was fed off the original plumbing and we put a carbon filter on
the line, we later exchanged this for a ceramic filter which we could clean
with a Scotchbrite scrubber, cutting
down on waste that we had to dispose of. This allowed us to have lovely fresh
clean water that we could drink. We added a deck fitting to fill up from
outside. Everything worked well. We used these tanks for several years (5);
coastal cruising along the East coast of Australia while preparing the boat for
passages further offshore in the future.For general use they used to last us about 2 weeks excluding laundry.